


Champion

by supernoodle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 17:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13885596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernoodle/pseuds/supernoodle
Summary: War is war is war to the tired soldier





	Champion

**Author's Note:**

> this... was not what I meant to write

_If I can live through this…_

* * *

Thirteen missions. Eight days. Formed Voltron three times. Spent time in the pod twice.

His stomach had been growling… some time before. The ache of hunger was yet another thing he had to re-teach himself to feel, after a few too many skipped meals left him shaky and stumbling. It wasn't important, now.

_Three matches, no meals, no way to tell time, twisted ankle and bruised ribs and gash on his shoulder and…_

_Don't think about it. Sip the water ration slowly, don't let shaking hands spill a drop. Ignore the aching stomach. Hope they feed him before the next match so he doesn't pass out._

He keeps his feet down the ramp of the Black Lion, stumbled through the door out of the hanger, stays upright to meet with the kids and tell Allura the mission was a success and Coran about the crushed stabilizers on Black's forepaw, trips over his own boots in the hall to his room, sits on the bed.

The gravity in the Castle in constant, but Shiro can't move for the weight of every square inch of himself pinning him down.

_He drops the sword and collapses back into the sand, white light glaring but he can't look away. There is a roaring in his ears he can't really hear. He feels like a lead statue, all the way down to his smallest fingers. Maybe they turned the gravity up._

_The light is blocked and clawed hands grab his arms, and his lead-weight heels leave furrows in the sand as they drag him out._

Removing the armor – his human fingers don't catch the clasps any better than his metal ones. When he does find them, the armor clatters from his forearms to the floor. Then his upper arms, and the shoulders release on their own. He stops there for a minute, hands to heavy to drag off the breastplate. When he musters up the energy to push it off, it scrapes his nose and scalp on the way over his head and then falls to his legs, bounces off to the floor.

The leg armor goes fast, except for when he falls asleep bent double while undoing the shin guards, chest on his knees with head dangling and hands brushing the floor.

_The one time they give him armor, it almost kills him. The arena is enclosed this time, purple shimmer-sparks a sheen over his head and humming just under hearing. When they shove him in, it's through a separate room that none of the galra enter with him._

_The armor is airtight until the six-limbed dragon-scorpion-tank hits his breastplate and it cracks, leaking corrosive atmosphere into the suit._

The boots fall off as he pulls his feet up and lists sideways until his head hits the mattress.

* * *

_If I can live through this,  
~~I can do anything~~_

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Fall Out Boy song Champions


End file.
